“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” Opens This Friday, May 1st! New High Resolution Photos

To celebrate the opening of “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” Marvel and Disney Studios have released a ton of high resolution stills from the movie:

“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” opens this Friday, May 1st!

After “Avengers: Age Of Ultron”, What Is Next For Joss Whedon?

This is complete speculation on my part, but I am calling it right now, Joss Whedon is going to leave Marvel for either Warner Brothers or Sony.

Over the last few weeks I have been watching and reading interviews with Joss Whedon promoting “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” and he just doesn’t seem very enthusiastic in most of his interviews. In fact he seems to be kind of negative towards Marvel at times. Whedon is contractually obligated to promote the film, but once “Ultron” is released, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear an announcement that he will be doing another superhero movie, just not with Disney and Marvel.

Here are my clues:

He’s not coming back to direct “Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 and 2.” I really was expecting to hear that Joss Whedon would be directing “Infinity War,” or at least one of them, but it was recently announced that The Russo Brothers (“Winter Soldier”, “Civil War”) would be directing probably the biggest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s going to be big because not only will the Avengers be in it, but also The Guardians Of The Galaxy and Spider-Man and even more superheroes. Either Disney/Marvel think the Russo Brothers are really that good or they asked Whedon and he said no. It’s more likely the later because although I really enjoyed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” I wouldn’t bet the farm just on the results of one movie.

Whedon recently came out and said that Edgar Wright’s “Ant-Man” script was the best script that was ever written for a Marvel movie. For those that dont know, Edgar Wright has been attached to Marvel’s “Ant-Man for years. He pushed hard to get this movie made and more than likely we have him to thank that it is coming out. But something happened where Wright and Disney/Marvel disagreed about the direction and future of Ant-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Wright and Disney/Marvel parted ways. Wright has a huge following of comic book fans and most were very upset to hear that he was no longer attached to the project. Whedon said the following, “I thought the script was not only the best script that Marvel had ever had, but the most Marvel script I’d read. I don’t know where things went wrong but I was very sad because I thought, this is a no-brainer. This is Marvel getting it exactly right. Whatever dissonance that came, whatever it was, I don’t understand why it was bigger than a marriage that seemed so right.” For Whedon to come out and say that Wright’s “Ant-Man” script was the best Marvel script he has ever written, to me, was the start of burning his bridges with Marvel.

He recently saw the “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice” and gushed like a little girl about it. The trailer was good, but it aint that good. Whedon said,“People with power, who are good, do not always agree and it makes perfect sense for me that (Batman and Superman) would fight. And besides… Batman and Superman are gonna fight! I’m so excited! I’m so excited!” He also said that Superman would destroy all of the Avengers. I’m not going to deny that if I had to choose who would win, I would pick Superman, but I wouldn’t say that while promoting a Marvel property.

He recently said that “Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD” is basically all a dream because Agent Coulson is dead. Whedon said, “Yeah he’s dead. The entire television series is just a fever dream. It’s a Jacob’s Ladder moment he’s having at the point of death, but we don’t give that away until after season seven. And there’s a snow globe. Now I’ve given it away. Bollocks!” I’m sure Marvel and Disney are not happy that he is telling fans that this show is just basically one big waste of time.

He came out and said that he was disappointed that he never got to work with Spider-Man in the Avengers. Spider-Man is Marvel’s most popular character and to many, including me, he is Marvel’s best character. Whedon is a comic book fan and it’s obvious that if he had a choice, this would be his next Marvel movie. Whedon said,“Yeah I’d like to have worked on Spider-Man, he’s the poster child. He’s the first book I read, and I think that’s true for a lot of people. There are so many things I would want to do, even with these characters The Avengers, even with just one of these characters. But the fact of the matter is: they’re doing fine, and I’ve probably got to move on.” He said it right there, he’s moving on. Whedon would be an excellent choice because he is a big Spider-Man fan and I think he would bring back the magic of Peter interacting with J Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle.

In all honesty as a comic book fan, I think it would be great if Whedon directed a non Marvel superhero movie. The perfect movie for him to direct would be “Justice League”, but Zack Snyder is directing that one. Whedon gets the team dynamic really well and feel he is best suited for a superhero movie. Whedon also did Firefly and you can tell he works really well with an ensable. If I had to guess, I would say that the one movie that he wants to do is “Spider-Man”, but Sony is still being run by poor management and probably will go with someone less experienced. The other property that he has said that he wants to do is “Batman” but have a feeling that WB will go with either Ben Affleck as director or maybe even Snyder. Which leaves “Superman” and I would love for him to do a “Superman” movie. Whedon could bring back some of the light heartedness that “Man Of Steel” was lacking and some nice colors that are not hidden behind a dark camera filter. Again, this is all speculation on my part but I doubt we will ever see Joss Whedon ever do another Marvel movie again, but he’ll be back again and I’m sure whatever superhero story he tackles, he will do a great job.

“Guardians Of The Galaxy 2” To Introduce Starlord’s Father

In the Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, there was a bit of mystery surrounding Peter Quill’s (Starlord) father. We do see his mother in the beginning and she does mention Peter’s father briefly. Soon after we hear that Yondu was hired by Quill’s father to retrieve Peter from Earth shortly after his mother death. And that’s it.

While being interviewed about the “Guardians Of The Galaxy 2,” James Gunn, director of the first film and the sequel, made the following comments to Vulture.com:

“There’s a lot of stuff I’m excited about in the new movie,” he said. “Listen, I’m still excited about Star-Lord’s character and where he goes. At its heart, Guardians is a story about families, and if the first film was about him and his mother, this is a story about fathers. So it’s exciting to go there.”

So who is Peter Quill’s (Starlord) father?

In the comics, Starlord meets Emperor Jason of the planet Sparta and he reveals that he is Peter’s father. Jason explains that he had crashed on Earth decades earlier and been rescued by Meredith Quill. During the year that he had spent repairing his ship, Jason and Meredith fell in love. When it came time to leave, Jason, for Meredith’s safety, had placed a mindlock on her memories of him, causing her to remember their year together as only a dream.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure they aren’t going with that father story. From the rumors that I have heard, again rumors, more than likely, Starlord’s father will be Adam Warlock.

Adam Warlock is an artificially created human who was born in a cocoon at a scientific complex called The Beehive. The goal of his creators, the Enclave, was to create and subsequently exploit the perfect human. While in the cocoon, he became aware of his creators’ plans for him. He awoke from the cocoon and rebelled. Adam Warlock definitely has a long and unusual history that I am not going to get into but he is also a very prominent character in “The Infinity Gauntlet.” “Guardians Of The Galaxy 2” would be the perfect way to introduce Adam Warlock into the Marvel Cinematic Universe before he is seen in “Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet.” No guarantees, but it seems like the it would all fit perfectly.

“Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 And 2” To Begin Filming Back To Back For 9 Months In Late 2016

Chris Evans recently revealed that the prospective back-to-back shoot for Avengers: Infinity War will take nine months, with production due to start sometime in the “fall or winter of 2016.”

The two-part “Infinity War” will be directed by The Russo Brothers. Marvel has slated part one of “Infinity War” for release on May 4, 2018, with the second installment hitting theaters on May 3, 2019.

Sony To Release A Theatrical Animated “Spider-Man” Movie In 2018

Sony announced recently that there will be an animated “Spider-Man” movie that will hit theaters on July 20, 2018. The movie will be directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who directed the highly successful “The Lego Movie.”

Sounds good, right? The only issue that concerns me is that Marvel will not be involved with this and the people behind “Amazing Spider-Man 2,” Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and Amy Pascal will be producing the movie.

Sesame Street And The Cookie Monster Spoof “The Avengers”

Just in time for the release of “Avengers: Age Of Ultron,” Sesame Street put together a little Avengers spoof featuring the Cookie Monster as The Hulk and a bunch of vegetable loving Muppets as the rest of the Avengers.

Sideshow Collectible Corner

“War Machine Mark II”

I was glad to hear that Don Cheadle was reprising his role as James Rhodes/ War Machine in “Avengers: Age Of Ultron.” Now thanks to Hot Toys and Sideshow Collectibles, we finally get a good look at the new Mark II armor for War Machine.

Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys are excited to present the new War Machine Mark II Sixth Scale Collectible Figure as a Hot Toys Exclusive item! The newest addition to the MMS Diecast series is made of diecast material and is realistically designed to look even more like the armor as it appears in the film!

The movie-accurate War Machine Mark II Collectible Figure is crafted with great detail and is based on the image of Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It features a highly detailed head sculpt, metallic black and dark silvered colored armor with decals, LED light-up functions, rotatable machine gun, and a specially designed Avengers: Age of Ultron figure stand.

War Machine Mark II is now available exclusively through Sideshow Collectibles for preorder at a price of $339.99 and will ship in the third quarter of 2015.

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About the author

Joe Hogarty

Joe moved from New York to Florida back in 1997. He currently resides in St. Petersburg and visits the parks frequently. His first visit to the Magic Kingdom was when he was 8 years old back in 1974. Joe originally originally started as a photographer for WDWNT and is now the host of WDWNT: Nerd Alert, our movie reviewer and reports the news for WDWNT. You can contact Joe through email at [email protected]

I’m super excited to go see Avengers tonight! Then it will be on to anticipating Star Wars.

I’m sure that Whedon is done at Marvel. Maybe he’ll come back in the future but it is pretty apparent that he’s done. I do believe that comment he made about shield was in jest, otherwise there wouldn’t be as much of an effort to connect the two. The Coulson thing is the elephant in the room.

About the animated Spider Man would that be part of the marvel cinematic universe?

Hey Jared! Just saw Ultron. Liked it, didnt love it. I noticed that on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, the average is in the 70’s and I can see that. The first Avengers movie had a lot of holy crap moments and this one did not. There were a few but none of them were like when the Hulk took down that giant space slug thingy or bashed Loki like a rag doll. It was great to see Vision and they really did an excellent job with him. But something was definitely missing. I may go see it again tomorrow because I usually need to see a movie twice before I make a final judgement. I DID NOT like the Black Widow/Hulk stuff at all. Every time that stuff came up, I just rolled my eyes. And there was wayyyy to much of that stuff going on.

I will say, after seeing Ultron, I’m glad Whedon is done with Marvel. I thought Guardians and Winter Soldier were way better than Ultron. There were definitely a lot of moments in the movie that made me happy to see as a comic book fan but at times i judged it as a movie fan and felt as a movie, it was lacking.

From what I heard, the animated Spider-Man movie will not be part of the MCU. Also what was bad about that announcement was that Tom Rothman made the announcement. He was the guy that made all of the mistakes at Fox. At least it wont be like Spider-Man Web Warroirs, which is on Disney XD and I think that show is just dreadfull.

Kind fo cool, at my theater, they showed the Ant-Man trailer, the Batman v Superman trailer, the Fantastic Four trailer and my whole theater was quiet. Then the Star Wars trailer came on and everyone just flipped out. Was really glad to see that on the big screen and it looks like it is going to look amazing in 3D.

They didn’t show the Fantastic Four or Star Wars trailer at my theater! The mid credit scene was awesome (and I believe that the description of it had been leaked somewhere online), and as you can attest there truly aren’t any post credit scenes.

I did like the pace of this movie better than the first avengers. I’m grateful they didn’t go into the whole back story about how the Avengers assembled. The fact that it started out with them in action was great! The movie did slow down in the middle though.

As far as surprises, you can’t say that the hawkeye revelation wasn’t a surprise right (not an earth shattering one but still a surprise)? Vision with Mjoliner was a pretty great scene as well. One surprise that I was looking for which wasn’t there was Whedon had said that some unadvertised super hero’s would make an appearance. I mean I know there were cameos from falcon and others, but I didn’t see anyone new who wasn’t advertised.

And yes I agree the Black Widow/Hulk thing was way overdone. Honestly I felt Black Widow and Cap had better chemistry in The Winter Soldier. I absolutely loved getting a little bit of Black Widow’s back story, it made her more connectable.

I think the thing that is missing, as you said Joe, was the lack of gravitas. How many Marvel movies have there been which threatened world destruction? You can only play that song so many times before it gets old (hello Infinity Wars (which I will still see)). Yes we witnessed the creation of a new set of Avengers, and were introduced to Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Vision, Ulysseus Claw, Ultron but anymore it kinda felt like same song second verse. I still loved it, and am also going to see it again tomorrow. My concern is that the Avengers movies don’t have any more to offer.

Now my question is, is how does this affect Agents of Shield? I know they probably have it worked out, but it will be interesting to see what happens to Coulson and gang.

I’ve seen the Batman v Superman trailer a few times and each time I like it less. The best thing they could have done was just shown the Comic Con teaser where you see Batman and Superman in the pouring rain about to battle. That’s all you needed to see for that movie. Superman should not be the villain! I am sure that it is all a misunderstanding, but still.

I’m going to see the movie again today. I am always very harsh with my first viewing of a movie. But then once I had already seen it, I can sit back and relax instead of constantly looking for stuff.

Vision was great! Am so glad that he is an Avenger now. He was always my favorite Avenger growing up.I loved James Spader as Ultron too!

I’ll be honest, I never watched a single episode of SHIELD. Was never a fan of them in the movies and I dont like watching series on TV. Never saw Arrow and my friends think I am nuts. I have watched most of Daredevil and love it but what rather it be a movie. Would rather watch a good 2 hour movie that I can enjoy over and over again then to watch a 13 epsilon series that I will only watch once.

Unfortunately I’m a sucker for the super hero shows. And recently Shield has been very good building the Inhuman story arc. And it was kind of neat to see how last weeks episode led into the movie (ever wonder how the Avengers knew where the base in Sokovia was? Because of Coulson and crew in last weeks episode). Yes you don’t need to have watched Shield to understand Avengers but on top of becoming a decent show, the movie tie ins are fun too. Flash is probably my favorite show right now, while Arrow has me kind of bored this season…

Another minor complaint I had with the movie, is that there are sooo many super hero’s, and you’re introducing a bunch of new hero’s to the mix, that it feels like Ultron doesn’t get the time he deserves. It almost feels like a sub plot because there is so much else going on! And I truly hope that Ultron survives to fight another day, I think Loki is the only villain to survive his movie, and Marvel needs good villains.

About Batman v Superman, I’m still not sure what they are fighting about? Did Superman become an egotistical dictator (that’s what I surmised from the trailer)? I will go see it, but I won’t be counting down the days like I did for the Avengers.

The more I see of Ant Man the more I want to see Ant Man! I think Ant Man will be a lot like Guardians of the Galaxy in its tone.

I agree with you about Ultron. I’m sure they can bring him back. Maybe he left part of himself with Claw and we dont know that yet. I agree with you about villains. Wish we had Dr. Doom.

As far as BvS. Spoilers: Not sure if this true but what I have heard. Batman is basically semi-retired. He still fights crime but it is done from inside the Batcave using Batdrones. The reason why he retired was because Joker killed Robin. After the events of Man Of Steel, some people worship Superman as a god while others seem him as a ticking time bomb that can use his powers to take over the world. Bruce is working with Lex Luthor to rebuild Metropolis and Lex probably convinces Bruce that Superman is to powerful and needs to be taken down before its to late. The parts where he looks like a dictator I think are just clever shots by Snyder. Like when those soldiers are bowing down before him, he probably realizes that there are people out there that are fighting crime in the name of Superman and he finds there headquarters and tells them that this has to stop. I dont think he is bad, but he is misunderstood and people are afraid of what they dont understand. My biggest complaint is this is a very watered down version of my favorite Batman comic book, The Dark Knight Returns. I would have loved to seen a live action version of this with Michael Keaton returning to play Batman and even Nicholson as the Joker. Perfect casting would have had Clint Eastwood as Batman, but it will never happen. There is an excellent animated version available. If you havent seen it, check it out.

I’ll go see Ant-Man but I am going in with low expectations, which is good. I still cant see him with the Avengers. Think he would look pretty goofy with that helmet.

Glad Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige made it clear that there was no end credits scene so no need to wait. I respect everyone that made the movie, but if I don’t have to wait through 15 minutes of credits I’m not going to.

Not everyone knew. A lot of people in my theater were waiting for them. Since so many people were still in their seats, I actually did a search on my iPhone before I left the theater to make sure that they didnt decide to put another scene in there after all.

I knew they said that there wasn’t going to be a post credit scene. But Marvel has created this expectation of post credit scenes, and I would have kicked myself had I left early and missed out on a surprise post credit scene.

I went and saw the movie again last night. This time I took my dad who has not seen a single marvel movie. I was interested to see his take on it, since he would be viewing it as a stand alone film verses a cumulative film which is setting up future films. Suffice to say he really enjoyed it. Marvel is doing something right if its movies can still stand on their own and not on the reputation of their predecessors.

LOL I saw it again yesterday too! I wrote a review for the film and it might be up this weekend. Tons of stuff I noticed the second time that I didnt see the first time. I did like it better the second time around but it would have been better if they cut 20 minutes out. A lot of one liners. I know Marvel tries not to be dark like DC, but sometimes they push the humor a little to much. Ultron and Vision were fantastic.

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